University of Florida Thesis Or Dissertation
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THE SOCIAL MOTIVATION OF RETROFLEX VARIATION OF TAIWAN MANDARIN IN AN IMMIGRANT SETTING By YU-NING LAI A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2016 © 2016 Yu-Ning Lai To my parents, for their love and support ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation would have been difficult to complete without support and help from many people. First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my advisor, Dr. Hélène Blondeau, who has assisted me in coordinating this dissertation with her insightful comments and suggestions. With her invaluable guidance and encouragement throughout the research for and writing of this dissertation, I was able to accomplish it. I am also very grateful to my committee members Dr. Diana Boxer, Dr. Fiona McLaughlin, and Dr. Zhihui Fang, for their invaluable suggestions and support. I would like to thank all of the Taiwanese and Chinese participants in my dissertation research. Without their volunteering, this research would not have been possible. I appreciate every friend who assisted me in recruiting participants in Gainesville. I also would like to thank the faculty and staff of the Department of Linguistics and Chinese program at the University of Florida (UF) for their help and encouragement through my academic studies and in writing the dissertation. I sincerely thank my dearest friends in Taiwan and in the US for their genuine friendship and the support throughout these years of my studies. I am especially thankful to Eunha Hwang and Orapat Pookkawes for their academic and emotional support at UF. Finally, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my parents, Wen-Pin Lai and Su-Chiu Hsiao, for their unconditional love and tremendous encouragement which have provided me with comfort and warmth through this long journey of academic striving and during the difficult times. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................. 4 LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................ 8 LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................ 10 ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................... 12 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 14 Sociolinguistic Background in Taiwan ..................................................................... 17 Language Ideology in Taiwan Mandarin ................................................................. 20 Research Questions ............................................................................................... 22 2 HISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC BACKGROUND OF STANDARD MANDARIN, PUTONGHUA, TAIWAN MANDARIN ..................................................................... 25 Mandarin ................................................................................................................. 25 Linguistic Features in Standard Chinese ................................................................ 27 Mandarin in China: Putonghua (PTH) ..................................................................... 30 Mandarin in Taiwan: Taiwan Mandarin (TM) ........................................................... 31 Variants of Retroflex Initials in Taiwan Mandarin .................................................... 36 3 LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................................................................... 42 Dialect in Contact: Convergence and Divergence .................................................. 42 Research in Taiwan Mandarin ................................................................................ 51 Theoretical Framework ........................................................................................... 57 Variationist Sociolinguistics Approach .............................................................. 57 Order of Indexicality ......................................................................................... 60 Accommodation Theory.................................................................................... 65 4 STUDY DESIGN ..................................................................................................... 69 The Linguistic Variables .......................................................................................... 69 Participants ............................................................................................................. 69 Criteria for Participants ..................................................................................... 70 Individual interview ..................................................................................... 70 Group interview .......................................................................................... 72 Recruitment of Participants .............................................................................. 72 Individual interview ..................................................................................... 72 5 Group interview .......................................................................................... 72 Data Collection ....................................................................................................... 73 Data Analysis ................................................................................................... 75 Data Transcription ............................................................................................ 75 Data Extraction and Coding .............................................................................. 75 The Extralinguistic Variables ................................................................................... 77 Generation ........................................................................................................ 77 Gender ............................................................................................................. 79 Social Network Strength ................................................................................... 80 Length of Stay in the US................................................................................... 81 Statistical Methods .................................................................................................. 82 5 RESEARCH RESULTS AND INTERPRETATIONS ............................................... 86 Variation in Retroflex Initials (zh) (ch) (sh) .............................................................. 86 Overall Distribution of Retroflex Initials Variants ..................................................... 87 Correlation between Retroflex (zh) (ch) (sh) and the Extralinguistic Factors .......... 88 Strength of Social Network ............................................................................... 88 Generation ........................................................................................................ 91 Gender ............................................................................................................. 92 Length of Stay in the US................................................................................... 95 Multivariate Regression Analysis ............................................................................ 98 Gender ............................................................................................................. 99 Generation ........................................................................................................ 99 Length of Stay in the US................................................................................... 99 Strength of Social Network ............................................................................. 100 Group Interview .................................................................................................... 100 Distribution of Retroflex (zh) (ch) (sh) and the Extralinguistic Factors .................. 102 Generation ...................................................................................................... 102 Gender ........................................................................................................... 103 Strength of Social Network ............................................................................. 104 Length of Stay in the US................................................................................. 106 6 RESEARCH RESULTS AND INTERPRETATIONS ............................................. 118 Variation in Retroflex Fricative Initial (r) ................................................................ 118 Overall Distribution of Retroflex Fricative (r) Variants ........................................... 118 Correlation between Retroflex Fricative (r) and the Extralinguistic Factors........... 119 Strength of Social Network ............................................................................. 119 Generation ...................................................................................................... 120 Gender ........................................................................................................... 123 Length of Stay in the US................................................................................. 124 Multivariate